We recently experienced a partial solar eclipse at our office here in Pemberton. Adrian setup a number of cameras as well as a telescope to capture the event. While it was not as spectacular as a full eclipse it was still pretty neat. Check out the time lapse Adrian made.

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News for June, 2016

Alti-Tech Inc has recently become a dangerous goods shipper with DHL. This will allow us to ship any amount of lithium ion batteries to countries not well served by UPS, one of which is the United Arab Emirates. UPS is no longer able to ship any amount of lithium ion batteries to the UAE so we had to find another option to service those customers.

If you are a customer in the UAE or another country that has restrictive shipping regulations for lithium ion batteries please contact us, we can help.

Important Notice to Battery Customers
In addition to the new 30% state of charge all Molicel batteries will be shipped in shutdown mode instead of sleep mode, as had previously been the case. This is to ensure that the shelf life of the battery will not be negatively affected by the lower state of charge at manufacture. Upon receiving the battery it will be necessary to wake it up from shutdown mode. This can be done by applying charge for a few seconds prior to use.

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News for May, 2016

The transition to the new shipping regulations for lithium ion batteries has been relatively painless thus far. Ground shipments remain unaffected by the new rules and our Dangerous Goods certification with UPS has allowed us to continue shipping batteries to our overseas customers.

In other news here at Alti-Tech we've been very busy with several contracts that have come to us in the last couple months. A summer holiday is looking less and less likely but we're hoping time spent now will be repaid come winter time. A full season of non-stop skiing would be more than enough of a reward for all the hard work we put it now.

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News for March, 2016

The new shipping regulations for Lithium Ion batteries will be in force as of April 1, 2016. As part of those new regulations all lithium ion batteries must be shipped with a 30% state of charge. E-One Moli Energy issued a product change notice for the MCR1821 and the ME202EK as a result of this change. All new bulk cartons will be clearly labeled with a 30% SOC to differentiate them from existing stock.

In addition to the new 30% state of charge all Molicel batteries will be shipped in shutdown mode instead of sleep mode, as had previously been the case. This is to ensure that the shelf life of the battery will not be negatively affected by the lower state of charge at manufacture. Upon receiving the battery it will be necessary to wake it up from shutdown mode. This can be done by applying charge for a few seconds prior to use.

If you have any questions regarding these new changes please don't hesitate to Contact us

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News for November, 2015

Sometimes an integrated circuit datasheet is more of a minefield than an instruction manual.

Despite all efforts many chip manufacturers omit information, copy and paste data, have data that is just plain wrong, or haven't tested their product under all conditions.

In the world of battery control chips and microcontrollers it's all about the exceptions.

The designer of a system must track silicon revision levels, product errata, and also consult with the chip manufacturer to clarify sometimes contradicting details about their chips.

The designer must test the boundary conditions of the design. For instance, what happens when the battery is “sleeping” after a prolonged storage? What happens if communications are interrupted or noisy? Will ESD hits put the chip in an undefined state?

At Alti-tech we work directly with the chip manufacturers to ensure that we have the most up to date information. We test and record operation of a design under all conditions during our validation testing (EVT) to ensure we have all the exceptions covered.

Designing a custom battery for your low volume application can be a very expensive and time consuming process.

For low to medium volume projects (100 to 1K units) it is often more cost and time effective to design in a standard battery, even if this means adding support circuitry.

Applications that fall into this range are police and military robots, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV's), custom hand held equipment for oil and gas industries and environmental monitoring applications.

We offer two standard battery packs, the Moli Energy ME202EK and the MCR1821. Both battery packs have been around for years and have a proven track record of reliability and performance.

Both batteries are fully certified with UL/UN/PSE marks, and ready to ship via air with supporting documentation.
We also offer charging options for these batteries. For external chargers (removable battery) we have the MQC1821 and SBS2502 chargers.

For internal charging we can help with design services to ensure the batteries are being charged safely. We also offer DC-DC design services to transform the battery power into perfect power for your application.

If a single standard battery does not offer enough capacity we have technology to series or parallel these batteries to increase capacity or voltage for your particular application. With the ME202EK we have technology to parallel up to 10 packs with hot-swap support for up to 880 Wh of power.

Paralleling batteries to increase capacity also solves the issue of shipping batteries over 100Wh. If designed correctly with removable batteries and proper packaging, systems with multiple batteries can be shipped by air without dangerous goods declarations.

The same can be said for product design; you are only half way when you have designed the product.

Production testing is often an overlooked part of product design that can take as much time and resources as designing the product itself.

At Alti-tech we automate our product testing as much as possible. We use a modified CNC machine with custom pin jigs and testing hardware to test multiple circuit boards at once. This allows detailed testing to be performed without operator intervention.

As an example, our Li-ion battery protection circuit boards are tested 100% for functions such as over-voltage, over-discharge, short circuit etc. The test conditions are all simulated on the test jig and results logged to file.

fig.1 Automated Testing Jig

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News for March, 2015

Production of surface mount electronics (SMT) is relatively simple, but requires high precision.

Starting with good solder paste is critical, it is the foundation to the whole process. Here at Alti-tech we have two different methods for applying solder paste to bare circuit boards.

For prototypes or small runs we start with a laser cut stainless steel stencil and squeegee solder paste on by hand at our stencil station. The process is much like stencil-printing T-shirts, but with accuracies in the thousandths of inches.

For larger runs a semi-automatic pneumatic stencil "printer" is used, which is the industry standard for high volume SMT production.

The same processes are used on prototypes as production units, this means even one-off units get a stencil and are manufactured using the same processes and standards as production units. This means that prototypes can be used as pre-production first-articles.

fig.1 close up of solder paste

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News for February, 2015

Are you designing a battery powered product? We specialize in adapting our in-stock fully approved batteries for use in your new application.

Designing and having a battery approved for low to mid volume production runs (up to 5000 pcs per year) can be extremely difficult and extremely expensive. A typical new battery design cycle from scratch can cost up to $50K.

Free up your engineering resources to work on your primary product functions, and leave the battery management to us. Alti-tech can provide design and integration services to adapt our existing batteries to your new application.

For our new address information please click here. Please note that we now have a Ship To address and a Mailing address. They are separate because we no longer get mail delivered to our location. Couriers (UPS, Fedex, etc) still deliver to our door.

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News for December, 2014

If you are looking for Moli-Energy batteries, either the MCR-1821J or the ME202EK, there is currently a shortage of supply from the manufacturer. We've been told not to expect any available until the new year. Luckily we have a few MCR-1821J in stock right now so don't delay if you need to place an order!

It has been very busy here at Alti-Tech these last few months. Several projects have been completed and and we are finally enjoying a brief respite. Adrian even managed to try out his new skis the other day.

Our shop space is also evolving with the renovation of the office space. The metal shop has a beautiful new workbench that Adrian made from an old recovered beam. The CNC machine should be up and running in the next month or so.

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News for August, 2014

Alti-Tech has moved it's operations up to Pemberton, BC, a small town 30 minutes north of Whistler, the host city of the 2010 Olympic games. Pemberton has some of the best skiing and mountain biking in the world and is a fast growing community.

Our building in Pemberton is much larger than our previous location. We now have one dedicated shop for all the electronics design and manufacturing and an additional shop for all CNC machining and prototype assembly. The new space offers more room to expand and more time to grow the business as we no longer have to fight through Vancouver's impenetrable traffic to get things done.

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January 15, 2013

As many of you are no doubt aware, as of January 1st the regulations for shipping lithium-ion batteries were changed. We've prepared a document that summarizes the changes to UN Packing Instruction 965 in particular. If you have any questions, or if you'd like some additional information, please ontact us.

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January 2, 2013

Happy New Year!

Wishing all of you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2013!

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March 28, 2012

It's been a while since we've had a news update, but rest assured - we're still here! The last of the moving in and couple of production runs have kept us pretty busy. Looks to be a great 2012! Drop us a line and let us know what we can do for you!

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October 14, 2011

We're slowly settling in at our new location on Greenwood Street, but still have a lot of work to do! If you'd like more info about the space, check out our friends at Westrock Property. Stay tuned for more details!

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October 3, 2011

We have moved!

We're very excited to inform you that Alti-tech has successfully moved to a new, larger location! We're going to be rather busy with organizing and all the nitty-gritty that moving entails, but we will still be conducting business as usual.

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August 19, 2011

Keeping busy this summer with a brand new multiple Microchip PIC programming setup and production testing line! We currently have the capability to program 5 PICs sequentially without user intervention. If you've got programming or testing needs, feel free to drop us a line!

Adrian is finalizing preparations for the Medical Design & Manufacturing tradeshow in Anaheim next week – he'll be walking the floor, so keep your eyes peeled! Don't worry though, Hanna and Jeremy will still be in the office to help you with anything you might need – feel free to give us a call!

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January 7, 2011

Happy New Year!

We're implementing a new quick-turn system for small to medium-sized production runs and are looking forward to helping our clients have a more productive and prosperous 2011!

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December 20, 2010

Happy Holidays!

It's hard to believe it's that time of year again! We at Alti-tech would like to wish everyone a very happy and healthy holiday season, and look forward to working with you in 2011! We'll be out of the office until the 29th, but feel free to drop us a line.

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September 29, 2010

Things are still ticking along here - we've got a couple of interesting projects on the go, and have even managed to find time to work on a new product! We can't say too much about it yet, but stay tuned for more details!

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May 6, 2010

Jeremy has been reading up on propsed changes to IATA and FCC regulations on the shipping and transport of lithium-ion batteries. While looking for relevant information, he stumbled upon this. It's a list of battery-related incidents recorded by the FCC since 1991.

Jeremy: While battery-related accidents are by no means funny, I couldn't help but shake my head at some of the incidents described in the first few pages of this document. For example, contains two excellent examples: July 15th 2009, a collection of batteries were packaged "loose, with the contact points exposed"; and June 11th 2009, a battery with exposed terminals was packaged in a bag along with loose screws.

Is it any surprise that a dead short could occur under these circumstances? On the very next page, December 13th 2009, 20 12V batteries connected together with exposed terminals packaged along with metal "shelves" caught fire in Memphis. Inconceivable!

My point is this: increasing restrictions on transportation of lithium-ion batteries based on incidents like the above is futile. Many of the recorded incidents don't even involve lithium-ion batteries - those that do come from rather suspect manufacturers. You'll see the same CR123 battery involved in 5 seperate incidents. 2 of which involve the same "Fresh Air Buddy" product.

Transportation regulations will never be completely effective - particularly when faced with the twin devils of cheap electonics and user "creativity" - but I daresay improving enforcement of existing regulations is far better than simply increasing restrictions.

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February 16, 2010

Gung Hei Fat Choi!

Happy Chinese New Year! What with the Olympics in full swing and the Year of the Tiger now upon us, we've had very little time to keep up with the news updates. Wishing everyone an exciting Olympics and a prosperous new year!

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December 23, 2009

Alti-tech Engineering would like to wish everyone a happy and healthful holiday season! We've had a great year, and we're looking forward to working with you again this 2010.

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November 12, 2009

We've been hearing a fair amount of talk about the latest "super-fast-charge" battery technology recently. While it is true that recent developments with lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cels have enabled impressively fast charge and discharge times, we feel it's important to bear in mind that there are other considerations when it comes to battery charging.

Let's say we'd like to charge a 500mAh cell phone battery in seconds, rather than hours. At 0.5A, the charge would take an hour; at 1A it would take half that time. So, to charge in 10 seconds:

0.5Ah ÷ 0.0027h = 180A!

Assuming we had a connector large enough to handle all that current, there's the small matter of how the existing electrical grid could handle such a draw. The long and the short of it is: it couldn't. The charger and charger rate must be designed to minimize load on the electrical grid while still providing convenience for the user.

This still exciting news - these cells also have a very fast discharge rate, which lends itself to more practical applications.

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November 9, 2009

We are pleased to announce the upcoming addition of STL's portable power solutions to our products line. Their MP series provide variable-output voltages to power anything from your laptop to rack and cart-mounted equipment, and come in 68Wh and 98Wh formats. They're not available yet, but contact us if you'd like to learn more!

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October 6, 2009

We're very pleased to announce that Alti-tech now has expanded our capacity for prototyping and PCB assembly. With our new solder reflow oven, we can produce boards that meet IPC-610A soldering standards. Contact us for more information!

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July 9, 2009

For our clients who need Windows versions of our test and calibration software we've been using a Python package called py2exe. It's
cross-platform; we can take a program developed on a Linux system and package it up to be a Windows executable. Best of all, it doesn't
require our customers to install anything on their systems -- perfect for people with restrictive IT policies.

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March 31, 2009

We've received a few inquiries about the recent layoffs at E-One Moli Energy. Although this is unfortunate news, our contact at Moli informs us that they will still be able to maintain our supply line, so our Molicel battery pack pricing and availability should remain the same.

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March 17, 2009

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Despite the recent economic downturn, we've been enjoying a steady flow of work. Companies are finding it more profitable to outsource their tech projects to subcontractors rather than bring on full-time staff. We're busy, but we'd love to discuss what we can do for you!

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January 16, 2009

It has been another great year for us here at Alti-tech, and we'd like to take a moment to thank all of our clients and customers for choosing our services. Here's to a happy, healthy and prosperous 2009 for all of you!

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November 21, 2008

Alti-tech has successfully registered with the Controlled Goods Program! We are now entitled to work with controlled goods under the Defence Production Act and the Controlled Goods Regulations, as well as work on ITAR projects.

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September 11, 2008

It's been an eventful summer here at Alti-tech, with perhaps the most exciting event being the arrival of our new CNC machine! It took a lot of work to get it installed and running, but we think it was well worth it. Watch this space for more information about our manufacturing capabilities.

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July 7, 2008

We've received word from our friends at Energy Access that the new and improved ICS 2-bay chargers are available!

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May 29, 2008

We've made up some CAD drawings in STEP format of the ME202CJ, MCR-1821J, MQC1821 charger and the 1821 contact plate to help you with your design process. They can be found on our batteries page. Enjoy!

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May 26, 2008

With the recent increases in raw materials and fuel costs, E-One Moli Energy has had to raise their prices and we have reluctantly had to follow suit. Our products page and online ordering system have been modified accordingly, but if you should encounter an error, please let us know!

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March 10, 2008

Jeremy managed to find a couple spare hours in which to give the website a little facelift. Special thanks to Sharon Bader for providing us with the gorgeous background photo!

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November 7, 2007

Our selection of in-house test equipment is expanding! Alti-tech can now provide a range of different testing services including automated battery pack cycling at controlled temperatures. Check back for a more detailed update soon!

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September 27, 2007

Our online ordering system has been upgraded - Hanna has added an algorithm that calculates customs and duty charges when shipping to the United States. What does this mean to you? No more delivery charges at your door!

In the wake of the recent furor surrounding overheating Lithium-ion batteries and massive recalls around the world, Adrian was asked to contribute his thoughts to an article in Business in Vancouver.

With the recent recall of over 40 million cellphone batteries, Nokia joined a growing list of companies affected by marketplace concerns on the safety of Li-ion batteries. In the article, Adrian joins other local battery gurus Isidor Buchmann, Blair Tweten and Ged McLean in providing professional opinions on these concerns.

Alti-tech only supplies the highest-quality batteries from E-One Moli Energy. The Molicel brand is made in Canada and meets our highest standards for reliability and safety.

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June 11, 2007

So much to do, so little time! The past six weeks have been pretty hectic here at Alti-tech, what with prototype assembly and testing, finding parts, ordering inventory and scheduling production runs. No idle hands here!

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February 9, 2007

The first few weeks of 2007 have been the standard dreary drippy days we're so fond of here on the West Coast. We've taken advantage of the weather and buried ourselves away in the workshop, busying ourselves with a mix of projects.

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January 12, 2007

The year is off to an exciting start! Alti-tech has been approached by Ecodrive to help design and develop a lithium-ion battery system for the EVT line of electric motorcycles.

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November 2, 2006

Update: The problems at our DNS provider have been resolved.

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November 1, 2006

You may be experiencing problems connecting to our site. Our DNS provider has been suffering under a Denial of Service attack aimed at their DNS servers. They are working on mitigating the attack and we hope to have everything working normally again soon.

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October 26, 2006

It's done! Our website upgrade is complete! Take a look around and let us know what you think!

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October 23, 2006

We've been working with White Monkey again putting together some exciting new props for various shows filming around town. Not only that, but we've also been working on an overhaul for the website, which should be ready soon!

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September 5, 2006

Alti-tech has been approved by Microchip as a member of the Authorized Microchip Consultant, Design House and Specialist programs. This is a recognition of Alti-tech's expertise in Microchip PIC programming and circuit design.

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August 1, 2006

We're still here! Alti-tech has been busy completing several custom design and PCB layout projects for a major lithium-ion cell manufacturer and a large battery pack assembler.

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May 30, 2006

We are pleased to announce our recent partnership with Energy Access Intelligent Charging Technologies. We are now offering both the Smart Battery Series and the Intelligent Charger Series on our products page, as well as all accessories available for these products.

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May 9, 2006

Adrian and Alti-tech have been expanding their horizons with developing props for the television and film industry. So far, Adrian has designed and built LED "scanning devices" for Battlestar Galactica and a "Doomsday Machine" for Eureka, both television series being filmed in Vancouver.